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We’re hearing that Nils Puhlmann, the cloud security expert who has worked as Zynga’s Chief Security Officer since 2009, resigned from the company yesterday, according to several sources familiar with the matter.

When contacted this morning, a representative for Zynga declined to issue a confirmation or denial, and said the company was “not commenting” on the matter.

Despite the “chief” title, Puhlmann was not officially part of the C-level executive team that falls under the SEC’s Section 16 reporting requirements — hence the company’s “no comment” stance. He reported to Zynga’s CIO Debra Chrapaty, who reports to CTO Cadir Lee.

Zynga has had a rocky road on the stock market since its initial public offering late last year; its stock opened this morning with a share price of $3.09, down significantly from its $10 IPO price.

One thing that’s for sure is that Puhlmann is a very seasoned veteran in the security space, having spent more than 15 years in executive-level security roles at software and web firms including Adobe, Electronic Arts, Mindjet, and Qualys. In the months leading up to Zynga’s IPO, he was described in the press as a core member of the company’s executive “dream team.” One source tells me that Puhlmann “was able to build one of the strongest security teams in the San Francisco area, and, in my opinion, the strongest in all of the gaming industry.”

Nils is also a Co-Founder and member of the Board of the Cloud Security Alliance, a community of over 24,000 security professionals with the goal to promote the use of best practices for providing security assurance within Cloud Computing. The Alliance also educates on the uses of Cloud Computing to help secure all other forms of computing.”